


The Roads of Ithilien

by jibrailis



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2010-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:45:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The road winds closer to Ithilien and Gimli's heart is troubled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Roads of Ithilien

The road winds closer to Ithilien and Gimli's heart is troubled. It puts him out of mood with the rest of his company. His brother Dwarves are eager to reach Ithilien and begin work on the gates, which they have constructed in their heads long before they will ever construct them by hand. It will be great worksmanship, Gimli knows, and a sign of friendship between their people and Gondor.

Yet he is troubled. When they see the greeness of a healthy Ithilien, he is not pleased. (He is a Dwarf. He is for the mines and darkness, not trees and flowers). When they pass beneath a shadowy rock he is not calmed (though the shadow is like the shadow that rides through Dwarf cities, like how he remembers Khazad-dûm).

Frar notices his discomfort and says gruffly, "My lord, be at peace. There is no more evil here."

He mistakes Gimli's troubles. Gimli is not burdened with a heavy heart because of what has passed. He is uneasy about what will be, and it is not darkness that unnerves him but the memory of light. Forest-dappled light, a body moving easily through a grove of trees, a touch that had been as much a promise as an accidental graze. Gimli's dreams are full of his home and the joy, sometimes terror, of his work. Other times they are full of this unsettling light.

The lock of Galadriel's hair he worked into the handle of his battle axe. He holds it to him now.

In Ithilien the Prince is waiting for them. Faramir is much older now and his hair is streaked with grey. But his smile, solemn, is the same. The White Lady of Rohan stands beside him, juggling two children. The look she gives Gimli is sharp, she who slayed the Witch King of Angmar.

A long, long time ago.

Gimli fears he will not remember. He fears it the way he fears stone collapsing while he mines. Dwarves are stalwart but the race of Elves has ever been fickle, though Gimli knows now that it is untrue. What Elf did hesitate to defend Middle-Earth? Yet he does not entertain delusions; he knows he is ugly. The knowledge had come slowly and painfully. In his home, he is thought handsome among Dwarves. His thighs are strong, his hands are capable, and his beard is thick. But now he knows that dwarf beauty is not really beauty at all. It makes him angry, and afraid.

Elves have long memories. But surely _he_ would have found someone different to remember, an Elf-queen of unsurpassed beauty. Gimli has had none, no Elf-queen or Dwarf-maiden. Once he saw a girl as radiant as an uncut jewel. But he had turned his eyes away and let her be given to another.

"Look!" cries Frar. "The Elves!"

So they have come, Gimli thinks. There are twenty of them, all fair. Immediately his eyes rest on their leader and Legolas smiles back, a half-smile that pricks Gimli's recollection.

"You," he greets.

Legolas laughs like a running brook. "My old friend."

Gimli's heart sinks. There is nothing of the touch Legolas had given him in Minis Tirith during the coronation of the King. Yet he is glad still to be a friend, so he clasps Legolas' arm and speaks of his plans for Ithilien. As he speaks, he studies Legolas. His friend is much the same, perhaps even more lovely now that he has the experience of war to temper his grace.

They have come to Ithilien to work so work they do. Gimli is aware of Legolas' eyes on him as he swings his hammer. He cannot think anything of it. He makes no attempt to watch Legolas with the grass and trees; it would be his undoing.

At night they take long walks down the paths Faramir has pointed out to them, and some he hasn't. They talk about the people they know, the kings they've helped crown.

"And you," says Legolas merrily. "Have you fathered hardy Dwarf children yet?"

Gimli averts his gaze.

"Have I offended you?" Legolas cries. "It was not my intention."

Dwarves are ever brave. They have to be. Gimli takes Legolas' hand between his own, slender and clean between large and hairy, and he reaches to kiss Legolas' skin. His beard chafes, he knows, and the kiss is clumsier than he would have liked. Legolas' eyes widen and then he says, "Elbereth Gilthoniel!"

"It was not my intention to offend you," Gimli says roughly.

"I had thought you forgot," Legolas says quietly. "You are a Dwarf lord. Why would you wait for one Elf?"

Gimli's chest swells. Today is a good day. "And waited and waited," he says.

Legolas turns his head towards the land, the wood, the dark rock. "We could stay in Ithilien if it pleases you."

"It pleases me," Gimli says. And when Legolas is weary, they may go over the sea, but he does not say this out loud. It is his gift for later.

Legolas entwines his arm around Gimli's like soldier-brothers, lord-friends, most beloved. Together they go over the path and back into the garden.


End file.
